My last post highlighted the well-publicized Epsilon data breach that affected so many consumers like me.

But what if a company forgets to tell its customers?

That may have happened to me. Our family probably does over 80% of our grocery shopping at Fry’s Food Stores, owned by The Kroger Co. I’m quite sure they have my email address, because of their store affiliate card program. However, when Kroger was victimized by the Epsilon data breach, I did not get a notification or apology from Kroger.

Does that mean they don’t care, or by some stroke of luck, my email address wasn’t compromised? I may never know … but will wonder.

On April 4th, I received apology letters from my bank, a major retailer, a large pharmaceutical chain, and three hotel companies.  All of the apologies were similar, but I’ll share just one:

Dear Ritz-Carlton Customer,

We were recently notified by Epsilon, a marketing vendor The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company uses to manage customer emails, that an unauthorized third party gained access to a number of their accounts including The Ritz-Carlton email list. We want to assure you that the only information obtained was your name and email address. Your account and any other personally identifiable information are not at risk.

Please visit our FAQ to learn more.

In all likelihood, this will not impact you. However, we recommend that you continue to be on the alert for spam emails requesting personal or sensitive information. Please understand and be assured that The Ritz-Carlton does not send emails requesting customers to verify personal information.

It must have really hurt Ritz Carlton, that paragon of sophistication and propriety, to fall on its virtual knees and send out thousands for such emails.

I subsequently learned that USA Today reported:

With the possible theft of millions of e-mail addresses from an advertising company, several large companies have started warning customers to expect fraudulent e-mails that try to coax account login information from them.

Perhaps the Wall Street Journal wanted to make me feel special, one of select few:

Alliance Data (parent of Epsilon) reiterated that social-security and credit-card numbers were not stolen. It also said that only 2% of its more than 2,500 customers were affected.

I have yet to know whether there will be a harmful personal affect from this data breach. But it does illustrate that we are all vulnerable, whenever we trust any confidential information to someone else.

Technorati Tags: Identity Theft, Information Security, Privacy

Well, let’s see how this blog client works. I can embed a photo, but couldn’t figure out at first how to put it on the right side of the page, despite a tool that should do just. I’ll keep at it. It does appear to have a location feature.

Location:2646 E El Moro Ave, Mesa, United States

Tis is my first attempt at using my new iPad to author a blog post. I am using the WordPress blog client

Sorry, there doesn’t appear to be a way to embed a photo in the post.

This is a test of the MarsEdit blog client.  I hope it is better than the previous ones I have tried.  I find it ironic that Windows-only Microsoft Live Writer seems to be head and shoulders above blog editors I have seen on the Mac.

But MarsEdit looks like it will be sufficient for the fairly simple formats I use.

Technorati Tags: Blog, MarsEdit, Mac

I have been concerned for some time that Information Technology systems in general and Identity Management systems in general have become so complex that it takes rocket scientists to understand them, implement them, and take care of them.  Because of the relative scarcity of rocket scientists, many companies become overwhelmed by the complexity of the their IAM systems and either don’t implement them correctly or reap the benefit that could be realized.

Today I stumbled across an intriguing article, Simplicity: A New Model, by Jurgen Appelo, that explored the issues of simplicity and complexity. I liked the definition of simplicity Jurgen used:

Simplicity usually relates to the burden which a thing puts on someone trying to explain or understand it. Something which is easy to understand or explain is simple, in contrast to something complicated. (Wikipedia)

But he went further, explaining simplicity and complexity with the aid of a visual model:

I encourage you to read Jurgen’s article to understand the significance of each visual image.

This made me this made think, “Is there a way to map IAM systems onto a model like this?”

I don’t know the answer, but it is an issue worth exploring.  I’ll let you know if I come up with some brilliant ideas.

Space Shuttle Discovery landed at Kennedy Space Center in Florida earlier today, completing its 39th and final mission, completing a “career” of 27 years and 148 million miles flown.

Quoted in a Deseret News article, Former Utah Sen. Jake Garn, R-Utah, who flew as a payload specialist aboard Discovery in April of 1985, said he is extremely saddened at the "retirement" of Discovery:

… it is a "huge, huge mistake" for the U.S. government to turn its back on the 30-year-old space shuttle program that is being shuttered because of operational costs.

"NASA constitutes less than one half of 1 percent of the federal budget," Garn said, adding that the Congressional will to de-fund the program is a decision "I don’t even comprehend."

Amid the sadness, however, he remembered the joy of his Discovery flight:

"There were 16 sunrises and 16 sunsets every day, with 45 minutes of daylight and 45 minutes of darkness. … It is impossible to describe what it is like."

"The magnificent beauty of our planet … it makes you realize how insignificant we are here on Earth and you wonder why we don’t treat each other better."

I never rode the shuttle like Garn (although I would have loved to do so), but I have been fascinated by the space program since I was a little boy.  Part of my heart is dying as the shuttle program takes its final breaths.  There is something ennobling in man when he looks upward to the stars and takes significant steps to reach them. We lose that when we look downward and judge the space program solely on terrestrial pragmatism

Thanks to @JeffCutler for pointing out mentionmap, a service provided by Asterisq, to build a “map of mentions” where “each user is connected to the people and hashtags they mentioned the most in recent tweets.”

Here is my current map.  It will be interesting to check again in a few days to see who I am connected to then.

I haven’t devoted many posts on this blog since a few years ago, when Terry Sigle and I were cheering our favorite teams, the Dallas Mavericks and the Phoenix Suns on to victory.

But is is appropriate now to mention that Jimmer Fredette, who hails from my alma mater, Brigham Young University, was named Player of the Year by CBSSports.com.  Jimmer was the NCAA national scoring leader, averaging 27.9 points per game.

Congratulations, Jimmer, for a great year!

Triggered by Dave Kearn’s article today, “What is Privacy, Really,” I spent a few minutes this afternoon with my good friend dictionary.com.  It is amazing what one can learn about word meanings by (virtually) flipping through the pages of a dictionary.

Privacy: the state of being free from intrusion or disturbance in one’s private life or affairs: the right to privacy.

This was a bit circular in its reasoning, so I looked up “private”:

Private: confined to or intended only for the persons immediately concerned; confidential: a private meeting.

These meanings match well Dave’s desire to exercise control over when he divulges personal information:

I can see no reason to cough up details of my business, number of employees, target date for purchase, types of computers, operating systems, applications, etc., simply to read a high-class marketing document

A related term is confidential – again related to the ability to keep information private:

Confidential: spoken, written, acted on, etc., in strict privacy or secrecy; secret: a confidential remark.

For example, I can assure you that there are details of my personal life that nobody but my wife knows.  We intend to keep it that way, even if powers like Facebook and Google would have it otherwise.